The University of Florida is regionally accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS)
to award associate, bachelor’s, master’s, specialist, engineer, doctoral and professional degrees.

Criminology, Law and Society

College

Department/School

Criminology, Law and Society Program Information

Requirements for the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees are given in the Graduate Degrees section of this catalog. The graduate program in criminology and law has two areas of special emphasis: crime and justice, and law and society. The degree programs are research-based and prepare students to conduct original exploration into relevant problems, issues, and policies.

M.A. degree program: Admission to the master’s degree program requires a bachelor’s degree from a criminology/criminal justice or relevant social science or humanities program (political science, sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, history, women’s studies, etc.). Qualified students may enter the master’s program as undergraduates through the combined B.A./M.A. program. Both M.A. options (thesis and nonthesis) require satisfactory completion of at least 36 credit hours.

Ph.D. degree program: The Doctor of Philosophy program includes a minimum of 90 semester hours of credit beyond the B.A. Students with a criminology or closely related M.A. received in the last 7 years from an accredited U.S. university may request that up to 30 hours credit from their M.A. work be counted toward this total. Those with an M.A. from this department may apply 36 hours. The Department requires Ph.D. students to complete at least 66 hours of course work (excluding research credits), including the M.A. hours. Qualifying examinations take place at the end of a student’s course work.

Criminology, Law and Society/Law joint degree programs: The Department of Sociology and Criminology& Law (CLS) and the College of Law offer a joint degree program leading to an M.A. or a Ph.D. in Criminology, Law and Society and a J.D. in law. The joint degree programs enable students to earn both the degrees (the J.D. and the M.A. or the J.D. and the Ph.D.) in less time than would be required to earn both degrees consecutively. Students wishing to pursue the joint program must be admitted to both the Graduate School and the College of Law. These requirements include both the LSAT and GRE. Admission to one may precede the other. Students are encouraged to announce their intent to seek a joint degree as soon as possible. CLS allows 12 hours of appropriate law school courses to be credited toward the CLS degree. The 12 credits selected from the law curriculum must be approved by the graduate coordinator on the recommendation of the student’s supervisory committee. The College of Law will permit 12 hours of credit earned in graduate courses to be credited toward the J.D.